Page 19 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

Other people zip around us with varying degrees of finesse. Some couples glide by in gentle conversation, like they’re on a walk in the park. One man thunders past like he’s running, ramming the blades of his skates down like ice picks. An elementary-aged girl whips by with the balletic grace and speed of a figure skater. Jake hovers nearby. He’s got his arms poised like he’s ready to reach out and grab me. “We can go slow.” His gaze latches onto mine and holds. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t have to stay here in the baby lane with me. It’s fine.”

He tips his head to the side, curious. “I’m here to skate with you. Why would I skate off by myself?”

Goosebumps stitch up my spine and down my arms, and it has nothing to do with the cold air. I’ve only ever been ice skating one other time—at the Rockefeller Center with Calvin. He’d played hockey in high school, so he was great on the ice. At first, he held my hand and helped. Eventually he said he wasn’t having fun, and that I’d need to figure it out on my own. Then he spent the rest of the evening lapping most of the people in the rink. A few times, he flipped around to skate backwards in front of me, but whenever I reached out for him, he’d grin like we were playing a game, and skate away.

Jake is here, though. With me.

The only time I don’t have Jake’s full attention on the ice is when he helps other people who have fallen. Marshals skate around in red shirts for this very purpose, but Jake beats them to it half the time. One of his rescues is a grown man who says something to him in Italian, laughing, and Jake replies. Also in fluent Italian. Because of course he does.

He skates back to me and I push away from the wall towards him with more confidence than skill. Instantly, I start to wobble, and the moment turns into slapstick. I bend at the waist to try to slow my momentum, which throws off my center of gravity. I whip upright, but it’s an overcorrection. My hips lurch forward as I windmill my arms. Right now, I’m the cliché.

I get a glimpse of Jake closing in. The only thing that would make this worse is if I take him down with me, so I try to wave him off. My brain wants me to say, “You don’t have to catch me,” but what comes out of my mouth instead is a high-pitched “Yeeeee” wailing over the music. It echoes across the courtyard. When I wrench my body sideways in an attempt to brute-force my way back to the wall, I go down hard, wrist-first.

Jake comes to a stop with his back to the oncoming skaters, crouching like he’s shielding me. Gently, he lifts my knitted beanie away from my eyes and tucks a lock of my hair back underneath. The pad of his thumb coasts across my cheekbone like he’s brushing something away. He ducks his head and says, “You OK?”

“Oh, totally.” The fall knocked the wind out of me, so it comes out as a croak.

“Fascinating interpretive dance,” he says.

Despite the pain in my wrist and my hip, I can’t help laughing. “I call that one ‘The Skedaddle.’”

“You looked like a marionette whose puppeteer was being attacked by bees.”

I lean forward and laugh harder. Jake has a hand on my knee. I brace my palm against the ice to try to sit up, but the pain in my wrist makes me hiss in agony.

“Let me see.” Jake takes off his gloves and lifts my hand, gently working his fingertips under the cuff of my coat and into my glove to slide it off. He eases each of my fingers free, careful not to tug my wrist as he does. Suddenly, I have a very intrusive, very hot image of him on his knees in front of me in a dark room, languidly stripping knee-high socks down my calves—

“Looks OK.” His voice is a rasp. Like maybe his imagination and mine went to the same place.

My hand is cradled knuckles-down in both of his. He skims his thumbs over my skin, one along the heel of my palm, the other over the pad just below my own thumb. There’s nothing clinical about this. It’s an exploration, and my hand is the first part of my body he’s getting to map. All the fine little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand up so fast it’s almost painful.

An ice marshal skates over, and the spell is broken. “You all right there?” He’s cute, with a septum piercing and a few tiny jingle bells attached to the ends of his chin-length locs. “Never heard a person make that sound before. And I’ve seen a lot of tumbles.”

Jake chuckles as he stands to help me to my feet. The marshal takes point opposite him.

“Well,” I sniff. “That’s how we do it in America.”

They both lightly hold my elbows and usher me safely to the exit.

After we turn in our skates, Jake and I go to the rinkside lounge. Inside, the air shimmers with cozy heat. It doesn’t feel like we’re in a temporary pop-up—it feels like we’ve just entered a 1920s speakeasy or a modern bootleg bar. Dim lighting, crimson carpet, walls covered in black velvet. Mini curtain lights in alternating silver and gold drape along the ceiling. The only other light comes from candles on each of the small tables and a slim Christmas tree covered in red and gold vintage bulbs.

Jake buys a hot chocolate for each of us. The paper cups overflow with big marshmallows in whipped cream and sprinkled with cocoa. A gingerbread cookie nestles between them.

“Oh, wow.”

Jake carefully sets the cup in front of me. “Is that a good wow?”

“It’s a wow wow, that’s all.” I wrap my hands around the cup to soak in a bit of extra warmth.

“The wrist OK?” Jake says.

“Well, I can lift this cup, so I should be able to lift my morning coffee. I’ll survive.”

He sips his hot chocolate, and it leaves a wisp of cream on his upper lip. He quickly swipes it away with the tip of his tongue. “I’m sorry you fell. I’d have chosen somewhere else if I’d known—” He cuts off. “Ah—”

I peer at him through lowered lashes. “Hmm? If you’d known what, Jake? If you’d known I’d cosplay Bambi on the ice?”